Deception: To Be Cancelled or Renewed for Season Two?

Published: March 18, 2013

With Revolution taking a break, NBC decided to try a new Monday night drama, Deception. Has it been a ratings success for the network or will it end up being cancelled like so many of their other Monday night dramas?

On Deception, a wealthy party girl has been mysteriously murdered. Her childhood friend, now a San Francisco narcotics detective, is convinced by her former partner to go undercover into the wealthy world she thought she’d left behind. The cast includes Laz Alonso, Meagan Good, Victor Garber, Katherine LaNasa, Tate Donovan, Wes Brown, and Ella Rae Peck.

The series debuted in January to a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 5.66 million total viewers. Those were hardly impressive numbers and were less than half of what Revolution’s premiere drew a few months earlier. Year-to-year however, it was a big improvement over the ratings NBC was getting for Rock Center with Brian Williams.

In week two, Deception’s ratings dropped more than 20% to a 1.6 demo rating and 4.14 million. That was not positive — and the ratings kept falling. As we now near the end of Deception’s11 episode run, the ratings seem to have stabilized at a 1.1 demo rating with about 3.3 million viewers.

Those numbers are terrible and certainly there’s no ratings justification for NBC to renew Deception for a second season. They cancelled shows like Chase and The Playboy Club and they had better numbers than Deception.

On the positive side, at least NBC aired all of the episodes. Unfortunately, viewers are unlikely to ever get their storyline questions answered.

But, what do you think? Should NBC stick with Deception and give it another shot next year or should they cancel it instead? Why do you think it didn’t catch on with a bigger audience?

At first it was a little slow but, I have gotten into the story line.. I think it deserves at least another season. I’m not sure where the story could go after Vivan’s killer is arrested? However, I would like to see it through.

This lady is so quick to write off the Deception show all due to ratings! But this is a new show and deserves a second season! What do you expect when you put a show up against veteran shows in the same time slot! Networks lately are too focused on low budget reality shows instead of letting drama shows gain an audience and allow storytelling to evolve …Media critics need to be ashamed of how they subtle sabotage these new shows from getting renewed by their TWO CENT OPINIONS!!!! that deters others from giving an effort to even watch a show!